The Musical Legacy of Wartime France.

Clifton, Keith E.

The Musical Legacy of Wartime France. By Leslie A. Sprout. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013 [xxiii, 280 p. ISBN 978-0-520-27530-0. $65.00]

As German tanks rolled into Paris on 14 June 1940--scarcely nine months after the invasion of Poland that heralded the start of World War II--the preservation of culture was not of paramount concern for the occupiers. Yet when Adolf Hitler arrived for his only tour scarcely a week later, he spent much of the time surveying the city's artistic and architectural treasures, including the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and Charles Garnier's Opera. The Nazis soon realized that supporting the arts, even in a perfunctory manner, could accomplish several goals, including portraying the regime as tolerant while providing distractions for war-weary French citizens. Despite a thriving artistic milieu, including more than 200 new films, dozens of books, and regular ballet and theater events, the prevailing view that concert activity, especially performances of modern music, was limited or nonexistent during the occupation years has persisted to this day. Musicologists have been slow to undertake critical examinations of the Vichy era when compared to historians in general, although this has begun to change, especially through the groundbreaking work of Yannick Simon, Myriam Chimenes, and Nigel Simeone. (1) Leslie Sprout's new study fills in several gaps while providing a focused snapshot of the period, adding much to our understanding of these unsettled years.

She begins by addressing several misconceptions, starting with the contention that concert music was superfluous to Parisian cultural life. In fact, French works were heard with surprising frequency, despite efforts to buttress German superiority through regular performances of Beethoven, Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Werner Egk, a Nazi favorite. Sprout notes the futility of drawing definitive conclusions regarding the political conduct of occupation-era musicians while arguing for the contemporary relevance of their works. Using five composers as case studies--Poulenc, Honegger, Messiaen, Durufle, and Stravinsky--she rounds out the narrative with lesser names such as Andre Jolivet in a series of dense yet compact chapters. While her observations directly challenging accepted views of musical meaning and reception will likely cause disagreement in some quarters, she employs keen analytical insight and extensive documentation to support her assertions.

The opening essay, provocatively titled "Poulenc's Wartime Secrets," reminds us that the composer served in uniform for a mere six weeks and thrived during the war years, especially when his ballet Les Animaux modeles premiered at the Opera in 1942. Representing his "greatest wartime success" (p. 3), the work is highly diverse, appealing to several factions while making anti-Vichy statements, including quotations from the popular song Alsace et Lorraine originally written in 1871 to protest about Germany's annexation of French territory.

In the ballet's " Two Roosters" section, Sprout posits Poulenc's reworking of music from Debussy's La Mer as an "allegory for the current situation in France" (p. 20), a point I wish she had explored in greater detail. She concludes with a brief examination of his other wartime compositions, including the Violin Sonata dedicated to assassinated Spanish poet Lorca, the evocative Deux Poemes de Louis Aragon, and the composer's setting of Paul Eluard in Figure humaine (not performed until 1945 and often regarded as his finest a cappella choral work). Although these works have been amply discussed in other sources, Sprout's comments reveal richer, more complex associations. Ultimately, she concludes that Poulenc "did nothing during the war for which he could be reproached" (p. 35), using his high social status, not to mention a substantial personal fortune, to great advantage.

The case of Swiss-born Arthur Honegger is altogether different. His enviable position as the most frequently-performed composer in occupied France was shattered by the decision to attend a 1941 Nazi-sponsored Mozart Week in Vienna. Produced under the auspices of the Reich Ministry of Propaganda and overseen by high-ranking officials (most notably Goebbels), Honegger's participation and positive reviews for Comoedia alarmed many in the Resistance, who asked in 1943 that he withdraw from their organization--the Front National des Musiciens (FNM). This led to a period of ostracization from the Paris musical scene during the 1944-1945 concert season and scant public performances until mid-1945.

Much of the chapter is devoted to a multifaceted discussion of Honegger's Chant de Liberation, composed in 1942 to text by Bernard Zimmer and presumed lost until 2009. (2) Originally written to accompany a film about Joan of Arc, the song was reworked into a Resistance piece after his removal from the FNM. It may also have influenced Chant de la Delivrance (1945), used in Raymond Bernard's film Un ami viendra ce soir (1946), the first in postwar France to address the Holocaust. Sprout reveals how the song appears diegetically at key moments and that his support of the Jewish Bernard--and vice versa--demonstrates how "colleagues in the film industry were more able to forgive his wartime choices than were his fellow musicians" (p. 69).

With Salabert resuming publication of his music in 1946, the composer slowly returned to favor. In a brief undated document--referenced but not fully cited--Honegger blamed the Mozart Week controversy on professional jealousy, among other factors. And yet Sprout's reasonable contention that he acted out of "professional opportunism" (p. 79) rather than politics has done little to silence those who persist in branding him a "collaborator."

Few modern chamber works enjoy the admiration and name recognition of Messiaen's Quatour pour la fin du temps. Since its 1941 premiere at Stalag VIIIA in Silesia, under harrowing conditions, performers and audiences have generally taken the composer's comments regarding this first performance at face value, resulting in a mythology where "we have assumed that all eyewitnesses are credible" (p. 83). In a revealing chapter, Sprout directly refutes Messiaen's contention that it was performed for an audience of thousands using a three-string cello. (3) Reminding us that "we will never know what the audience in the camp really thought of Messiaen's Quartet" (p. 112), she views the work as his attempt to transcend, rather than describe, his experience as a prisoner of war.

She further notes that despite an aversion to "degenerate" modernity, Vichy officials never explicitly banned contemporary works and that private events such as the Concerts de la Pleiade series were not the only opportunities in Paris to hear new music, evidenced by the 1943 premiere of Honegger's dissonant opera Antigone. Several Messiaen world premieres also occurred during the occupation, including Visions de l'Amen and Les Corps glorieux. At the same time, the Quartet was passed over by concert organizers in favor of works such as Jean Martinon's evocative symphonic poem Stalag IX ou musique d'exil.

Musicians worldwide know Maurice Durufle's Requiem as a moving conflation of familiar text, Gregorian chant, and modern harmonies. More than thirty commercial recordings exist, surpassed in popularity only by Faure's version. But few are likely to realize that the work, first performed in 1947, owes its origin to a Vichy commission. In "The Timeliness of Durufle's Requiem," we learn that the composer was asked in May 1941 to write a symphonic poem but rejected the request in favor of choral music. Adapting the Solesmes method of chant, he was largely faithful to the original melodies but freer in harmony. Not everyone supports Sprout's establishment of a Vichy connection, however. Frederic Blanc, president of the Association Maurice et Marie-Madeleine Durufle, disputes her findings, even though the book reproduces a 1948 certificate proving the Requiem fulfilled the commission. To complicate matters, Durufle omitted any reference to Vichy in a 1950 interview about the work, perhaps hoping to shield his most popular composition from the slightest hint of Nazi taint.

Controversy over the Requiem emerged yet again when selections were performed at the 1996 state funeral of French president Francois Mitterand, whose conduct during and after the war has undergone intense scrutiny. Ultimately, Sprout concludes that Durufle selected a choral piece because it best fulfilled his expressive goals while presaging a broader revival of plainchant and French choral music. Like Honegger, whose visit to Vienna under the guise of professional advancement has raised more than a few eyebrows, Durufle's Requiem contains a multifaceted backstory, best viewed through "nuances and shades of gray rather than black and white" (p. 149).

The final chapter explores the decade from the end of the war through the early Cold War era, focused on the contentious battle between serialism and neoclassicism for dominance of the French musical landscape. With both camps firmly entrenched, revealing a "generational conflict" (p. 162) that often turned personal, she surveys the major players: besides Stravinsky, these included Boulez, Messiaen, Poulenc, Jolivet, and Serge Nigg, often overlooked in studies of twentieth-century music. Torn between allegiance to his former teacher Messiaen and new mentor Rene Leibowitz, he composed works across the musical and political spectrum, including one of the first dodecaphonic works by a French composer, the Variations for Piano and Ten Instruments (1946). Underlying these tensions were debates extending back to the Quartet regarding Messiaen's position in French music, vividly illustrated by a press war (dubbed "Le Cas Messiaen") over the verbal commentaries in works such as the Vingt regards and Trois petites liturgies. For Boulez, the only path forward was total repudiation of the past, exposing a tension between progression and regression that continues to be played out in contemporary music in France and beyond.

Do not be misled by the focused scope and concision of The Musical Legacy of Wartime France, as this is a significant contribution to the growing literature on Vichy-era music that deftly supports and complements its sister publications. Although targeted toward a musicological audience, several essays (especially those on Messiaen and Durufle) could appeal to a broader readership. Through her meticulous research--nearly half of the book is devoted to endnotes and source references--Sprout corrects errors and misunderstandings while placing works both unknown and familiar into their full and proper context.

Its numerous merits notwithstanding, a few small concerns deserve mention. Despite the title, the book centers on concert music in Paris, with other locations given scant attention. Sprout's liberal use of acronyms--such as PCF for the Parti communiste francais--at times confuses the reader attempting to recall which group is being discussed at any given time. A brief overview of the major organizations, perhaps as an appendix, would allow for easier navigation. A lack of consistency in the use of musical examples is also evident, chiefly for unfamiliar works such as Gailhard's Ode a la France blesse. Since she scrupulously documents the significance of his use of popular tunes, the omission of either music or text in this case is puzzling.

Ultimately, Sprout's decision to hone in on a select group of composers reminds us that a comprehensive survey in English has yet to be written. It would be instructive, for example, to know more about the conduct of Elsa Barraine and Henri Dutilleux, both members of the Resistance who accepted Vichy commissions, as well as others whose commissions went unfulfilled. Allowing the evidence to speak for itself, she proves that little during the occupation era is transparent and many questions remain unanswered. But above all, her analysis reveals how concert music remained a potent force not only for composers writing under difficult conditions but also for the Nazis themselves, who viewed the arts in general and music in particular as pivotal to a multifaceted and contradictory cultural agenda.

Keith E. Clifton

Central Michigan University

(1.) For example, see Simon, Composer sous Vichy, Lyon: Symetrie, 2009; Chimenes, ed., La Vie musicale sous Vichy, Brussels: Complexe, 2001; and Simeone, "Making Music in Occupied Paris," The Musical Times 147 (Spring 2006): 23-50. For a broader view of artistic life during the occupation, see Alan Riding, And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris, New York: Knopf, 2010.

(2.) Sprout discovered the score during a research trip. See her "Unlocking the Mystery of Honegger," The New York Times, 29 August 2010: 19.

(3.) Sprout's comments mirror those of Rebecca Rischin, who shows that the audience was in the hundreds and the cello fully functional. See Rischin, For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003, 61-6.